VIVALDI COMPOSITIONS FULL
VIVALDI COMPOSITIONS PROFESSIONAL

Vivaldi’s compositions are always outstanding for the variety of colour he achieves with different arrangements of the solo and orchestral strings.

VIVALDI COMPOSITIONS FULL

There are also a few great concertos for solo instruments with continuo, without the common full orchestra strings. In the concertos for two violins the performers are usually given equal prominence. Most of Vivaldi’s concertos are created for one solo instrument with orchestra – at most times, of course, a violin, but with a large number also for the violoncello, flute, or bassoon. However, in his first produced collection of concertos (1712) Vivaldi already made it clear that he was entirely aware of the modern trends towards individual musical form and energetic rhythm. Many of the instrumental compositions, as well as some of the early concertos, are in the 17th-century contrapuntal style of Arcangelo Corelli. Vivaldi’s instrumental works, and specifically the concertos, are eternally attractive because of the freshness of their melodies, their rhythmic energy, their expert treatment of solo and orchestral string colour, and the stable clearness of their form. Vivaldi is known now mainly for his instrumental music. About 440 compositions of his survived, in addition to twenty-three sinfonias and seventy three solo or trio sonatas. Mainly for the Pieta, also, he wrote compositions for orchestras, the kind of instrumental music usually used at church festival services. His work at the Pieta required Vivaldi to compose oratorios and church music. His wrote forty-nine operas, most of them for Venice, but a few also for Florence, Verona, Rome, and other Italian cities. Like his contemporary composers, Vivaldi produced every work for a definite occasion and for a particular number of performers.

For example, Vivaldi completed his opera Tito Manlio in five days and he was very proud of himself on being able to complete a concerto faster than a copyist could copy it. Such persistent pressure accounts both for the enormous production of many 18th-century composers and for the remarkable speed at which they worked. Vivaldi was expected to provide new musical compositions for every periodic festival at the Ospitale della Pietà in Venice. There were no “classics,” and few music works continued to be in use after more than two or three seasons. It was in the concerto – a particular form he adopted from Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709) and Areangelo Corelli (1653-1713) and passed on to Johann Sebastian Bach – that he achieved his greatest success.Ī characteristic of the 18th century which is hard for people today to understand, yet which was very important, was the incessant public demand for new music. The list of his compositions include approximately fifty operas, besides two oratorios, twenty-four secular cantatas, twenty-three sinfonias, seventy-three solo or trio sonatas, and about four hundred and fifty concertos. He died in Vienna in July 1741, and, like Mozart, was buried in a pauper’s grave. However, he failed to receive royal favour, and the last days of his life Antonio Vivaldi spent in that city in miserable poverty as obscure person. In 1740, Vivaldi went to Vienna with the purpose to find a profitable post at the court of Charles VI. In 1735, he returned at his post at the Ospitale in Venice. At the same time, he travelled about Europe a great deal, achieving widespread reputation as a virtuoso violinist. In 1703 Antonio Vivaldi became a teacher of the violin at the Ospitale della Pietà in Venice, later working as its musical director for a long time. He also composed a considerable number of pieces. However, he did not forsake music practices completely all the while he developed himself as a master of violin technique.

VIVALDI COMPOSITIONS PROFESSIONAL

Although Vivaldi’s father worked as a violinist in the orchestra of the San Marco Cathedral and Antonio himself was early given teaching in music, Vivaldi began his professional career not in music, but in the Church. Antonio Vivaldi – who contributed to the development of instrumental music of the Baroque Era and brought it to the most advanced stage of technical and artistic development before Johann Sebastian Bach – was born in Venice, Italy, possibly on June 11, 1669.

Vivaldi compositions